Training and Giving Blood

I regularly give blood and this year so far I have managed to run 12 marathons and fit in donating 4 times. It obviously doesn't benefit me as far as training or performance is concerned, as unlike some people, I don't get to the blood back in.  Still, I am fit and healthy and have given blood off and on for over 30 years and don't want the fact that I now run marathons to prevent me doing so.

Giving Blood and Training
Apart from the obvious warnings about not doing anything strenuous  for 24 hours to avoid bleeding from where the needle went in, they say don't do anything like operate heavy machinery or possibly drive a bus straight after.  Last time I donated, the nurse was a bit concerned that I had turned up to donate riding a motorbike.  Seems like he had heard I wasn't allowed to do that, but then he checked and actually what I can't do is race a motorbike. Well, that's OK then.  I'm a bit like Reginald Molehusband in this respect (ed.-people of a certain age!) - I don't mix radial and cross-ply tyres on the same axle and I don't ride my bike like a lunatic.

So, having done a marathon on Saturday and given blood on Monday, I went for a lunchtime run on Wednesday and was basically fine. No dizzy spells and no bruising on my arm, but I did feel like I was running at a tempo/threshold pace while I only managed a 3 mile run in 27:20, which is about 3 minutes off what I think I could do this soon after a marathon.  Giving blood obviously has an effect on the pace that you can run, but what about long slow runs.

Long Run?
Five days after donating, the Saturday parkrun was run with daughter Elinor at a pace to get her back under 30 minutes and then on Sunday I decided to go on a long run.  This didn't worry me at all, as I wasn't going to be running at a quick pace.  So, on a breezy cold day, after having taken son Alfred to a cross country run, I set off to run home carrying half a bottle of water, leaving the rest of the family to a post event MacDonald's.  My route took me from Ravenscote School north of Frimley, back towards Frimley Hospital, then uphill on road for 2 miles to get into Swinley Forest.  From there I had an undulating/hilly 7 more miles trail running to get home.

I managed a steady 10min/mile pace the whole time and was pleased to see that the miles with big hills in weren't much slower that the rest of the run and I only had slow miles at obvious places where I had to wait to cross main roads.  I did a total of 10 miles in 1 hour 40 mins; not a blistering pace, but that wasn't the point.  Even better I was feeling good at the end of the run and not really stiff the next day, proving that you can get some quality distance runs in after blood donating as long as you keep the pace down - which is, after all, what you are supposed to do.

Tempo and Fast?
The following Monday was a rest day with a day in London on a financial planning course, mostly sitting still all day, but at least I got to walk the mile back to Waterloo.  Tuesday I was out for a run with Sandhurst Joggers, which was another slow medium run of about 8.5miles once I'd added getting there and back.  By now I was feeling good enough to get some proper endurance training in by joining in with SJ's Thursday tempo run - a nearly 8mile 80% effort which I ran at 8:35/mile pace.  I had a rest day on Friday and then had a go at a fast parkrun with Alfred at our usual Frimley Lodge.  That turned out to be a well paced run, but not quite as quick as I had hoped as I wanted to to get under 23 minutes.  As usual, Alfred appeared to be struggling but really he was just keeping up until 500m to go when he hit the gas and made sure I didn't get within 10m of him from then on.  I finished in 23:35, 2 seconds back on Alf, but I did manage a sprint finish rather than just dying in the last 200m.

Lessons Learned
So, the upshot of this couple of weeks post-marathon and post blood donating running?  I managed some quality training, but 12 days after donating I was at least 30 seconds down on my parkrun time. I have read that it takes about 1 month to get back to the red blood cell count  you had before donating, so it's reasonable to say I am still under the influence of that.  However, I am not that far away from being back to normal for fast paced runs and, given 1 more week, I think I could be running a sub 23 minute parkrun.

In conclusion, if you have a race coming up, I would leave a gap of at least 4 to 6 weeks from giving blood and it shouldn't affect your time.  If you give yourself at least 1 week light training after donating, my experience is that you can get back to normal training as hard as you like from then on.  However, you should train to how you feel and according to your perceived effort, NOT the pace that appears on your Garmin.  If you need to train at threshold pace try wearing a heart rate monitor, as this will show you what an appropriate effort is rather than having you collapse in a heap after trying to hit a particular pace.  Just accept that you are going to be a bit slower for a couple of weeks.  Given a few blood donating cycles, you will learn how to train around it and not affect your races.

Talking of races, I have some more fun lined up next week.  I shall be running another marathon on Friday, running a recovery parkrun with Elinor on Saturday and then having a go at the Handy Cross leg of the Thames Valley XC league on Sunday.  That sounds like a lot of fun!